Somewhere in the archives of the Royal Agricultural Society of NSW, in handwritten committee minutes spanning more than a century, lies a paper trail that reflects the evolution of Australian wine shows. Not the romantic version – all sweeping vineyards and celebrated vintages – but the real one: letters about entry fees, debates about judging dates, arguments about whether prize money or medals better served the industry, and 11 sparkling wine bottles that spelled out a political message nobody was supposed to notice.
In what is a milestone year, it’s a timely reminder that a wine show really is a sum of its parts. Testament to the people and producers involved. Whilst there’s a long and storied history to the Sydney Royal Wine Show, its continual evolution makes the show remain an important part of improving the quality of Australian wine. Keeping pace as styles change, as consumers look at different varietals. The people involved bringing to life a wine show each year are at the heart of it – passionate judges, stewards, sponsors, committee members who genuinely want to advance agricultural excellence.
In 2026, the Sydney Royal Wine Show will celebrate 200 years since wine was first included in an agricultural show. These are some of the stories about the people who got it there and highlight the commitment from those who steward it into the future.
Before the agricultural show existed, there was Gregory Blaxland. Most Australians know him for crossing the Blue Mountains in 1813; fewer know that a decade later, he became the first person to export Australian wine overseas. Blaxland carried a quarter-pipe of red wine from his vineyard at Brush Farm near Parramatta to London, and he stabilised the wine for the voyage with a measure of French brandy.
The Society for the Encouragement of Arts awarded that wine a silver medal in 1822, describing it with what might charitably be called cautious enthusiasm as having much the odour and flavour of ordinary claret. He returned with a second shipment in 1828 and received the Gold Ceres Medal. The judges were more generous this time, writing that the wine afforded a reasonable ground of expectation that by care and time it may become a valuable article of export.
Within four years in 1826, the Agricultural Society of New South Wales held its first wine competition. The show predates the California State Fair wine competition, the oldest in the United States, by 28 years and the Royal Adelaide Wine Show by 62 years.
The first competition of the Agricultural Society of NSW offered a small gold medal for the best sample of Colonial Wine, not less than 10 gallons, certified on oath to be from the vintage of 1826, and purely of the juice of the grape.
That phrase, certified on oath, is worth examining. This was a colony less than 40 years old, still figuring out what it was and what it could produce. The requirement that the wine be purely of the juice of the grape was not just bureaucratic caution – it was a publicly set standard for what Australian wine should be. The Sydney Royal Wine Show has been setting – and raising – that standard ever since.
The story of women in wine at the Royal Agricultural Society of NSW stretches back further than many might expect. The first recorded female exhibitor in the wine section was Mrs G 'Eliza' Cox, who entered the Metropolitan Intercolonial Exhibition held at Prince Alfred Park in 1870. Exhibiting under the Winbourne name from her Mulgoa property, Eliza entered three classes: her White Frontignac took first prize in Class 241, her White Burgundy earned second prize in Class 235, and her Verdelho received an Honourable Mention in Class 234 - a remarkable sweep for any exhibitor.
The wines Eliza Cox brought to the show were grown on vineyards that had been established at Winbourne as far back as 1824, when George Cox — son of the famous road-builder William Cox — first developed the 600-acre Mulgoa property. George died in 1868, and it was his widow, Eliza who continued to champion Winbourne's wines on the show circuit, entering again at the Metropolitan Intercolonial Exhibition of 1872 with a Verdelho from the 1868 vintage. She did so, managing a significant agricultural estate on her own, until her own death in 1876.
By the turn of the 20th century, the Australian wine industry had earned a permanent home on the Sydney Showground. Following sustained lobbying from the Central Australian Wine Association, the predecessor to what is now Wine Australia, the Royal Agricultural Society commenced construction of a dedicated Wine Kiosk in 1901. Prior to this, wines had been displayed in an annexe to the Main Pavilion on the eastern side of the grounds — a temporary arrangement that no longer reflected the growing importance of wine to the Show's program.
The foundation cornerstone was laid by the Hon. J. Kidd, Minister for Mines and Agriculture, and beneath it was placed a time capsule including a cache of papers, wine and coins sealed within the stone to mark the occasion. The Kiosk opened in 1902, and its Park Road location was especially fitting, sitting between Burgundy Street and Claret Street.
The building was refurbished in 1936, and a wine cafe was added that continued to operate until 1973. When the cornerstone was finally removed in 1995 as the RAS prepared to relocate to Homebush, the time capsule objects were retrieved — though the passage of nearly a century had taken its toll. The items were conserved by the RAS Heritage Centre, where they remain today.
For a wine industry still establishing itself on the national stage, having a dedicated permanent building at Australia's most significant agricultural gathering was no small thing.
In 1914, Penfolds wine entered 11 sparkling wines across three classes at the Easter Show wine competition. There was nothing unusual in that – except for the names.
In sequence, the names spelled out: THERE – IS – EVERY – PROSPECT – OF – FURTHER – INDUSTRIAL – TROUBLES – UNLESS – THE – LAW.
The 12th word is missing. Whether it was never entered or quietly removed by someone at the RAS, it’s not clear. What remains is one of the more audacious moments in the show's history: a major wine producer using the opportunity to spell out a labour protest, one wine at a time. The bottles are long gone, but the mystery and intent of the message remain.
Source: RAS NSW Wine Section History; committee records 1914
In an excerpt authored by L.A Sauders titled “The Wine-Growing Industry in The RAS Annual from 1918, it flagged the opportunity for the wine sector in Australia
“Among other wrong ideas, which the war has swept away, is that wine was the beverage only of the mythical class, miscalled “the rich” and it has come as a surprise – to the English speaking race, at all events – to learn that the foundation of France’s great prosperity was their wine-growing industry and that to the average Frenchman wine was food and drink and medicine, and that they were among the most sober nations of the world. Wine was declared a food stuff at the very outset of the war, and the fact that the Allies’ expenditure in wine for the year 1917 was £11,500,000, clearly reveals its importance and great value to any country possessing climate and soils suitable to its production”
Sauders went on to note the opportunity for winemakers and the RAS to help with education and the fostering of knowledge. “The intention of the Royal Agricultural Society to foster agricultural education and the expansion of our primary industries, will include wine growing and it is to be hoped that the result will be what is confidently anticipated. We have some of the younger men engaged in the industry, not only expert winemakers, but expert field men as well. This wider knowledge is of the greatest assistance to the industry and is one of the reasons why our vineyard products are classed among the ‘healthiest’ in the world.”
Despite renewed post-war enthusiasm, the show was suspended in 1919, due to the government stopping the show, not only due to World War 1, but also the Pneumonia influenza epidemic. In a communication to Members of the Society, it still noted that prizes were awarded for wine, wheat and butter, with a judge for sweet and dry wines. A prize of £3 was given for first prize, £2 for second prize and £1 for third prize for vintages 1918, 1917, 1916 and 1915 and older.
Long before the Sydney Royal became synonymous with wine and judging feedback, the Royal Agricultural Society's annual publications served a serious practical purpose: advancing the knowledge and skill of Australia's grape growers. The 1925 RAS Annual offers a vivid illustration of this mission in action, recording a lecture delivered during the Show by Mr H.L. Manuel, NSW Government Viticulturist, on the diseases of the vine.
Manuel divided vine diseases into vegetable and animal parasites, focusing his remarks on three fungal threats then troubling Australian vineyards: Downy Mildew, Black Spot and Oidium. Of Downy Mildew he was characteristically direct, warning that wines made from affected grapes "could never be depended upon to keep their condition" and that "the merchant was unwise to purchase such material from the grower." He traced the disease's likely introduction to the reconstitution of vineyards around Rutherglen, Victoria, between 1914 and 1917, and explained its lifecycle with precision. From winter spores lying dormant in soil through to summer cycles of infection that, once established, meant the disease "had come to stay."
What makes these records so valuable is not simply the technical detail, but the spirit behind them. The RAS Annual was a vehicle for distributing practical, expert knowledge directly to grape growers at a time when such guidance was difficult to come by. Manuel's lecture, faithfully recorded and published, reflects the Society's founding commitment to furthering the quality of Australian primary production through education and shared knowledge - a mission as relevant to the wine industry today as it was in 1925.
The 1927 RAS Annual recorded the proceedings of an important viticultural conference held in September of that year, with a report issued by the Federal Viticultural Council. Its tone reflected an industry that had moved well beyond its colonial origins and was beginning to understand its own economic weight. The report noted that wine exports had grown so significantly that the commodity now appeared under its own heading in Commonwealth statistics, no longer grouped with sundries. The industry had by this point attracted investment of approximately £20,000,000, required over £1,000,000 annually to maintain and develop, and was contributing over £800,000 in excise duty to government revenue. Vineyard labour alone accounted for between £600,000 and £700,000 each year, and this figure excluded the making, storing, maturing and distribution of wine entirely.
The Council was candid about public awareness: "The man in the street does not perhaps realise how great the Australian wine industry is already, how much greater are its potentialities, and what an important part it plays in many of our secondary industries." It was an industry that depended on countless other trades, with practically nothing, save corkwood and oak in their raw state, that was not produced in Australia”
Against this backdrop, the contribution of Lindeman's was substantial. Although wine-making in New South Wales dated to the introduction of the first vines over 130 years prior, the report identified 1843 as the turning point, when Dr H.J. Lindeman planted the famous Cawarra vineyards on the Hunter River and gave the industry, in the Council's words, "that impetus which was lacking." The Hunter produced the dry styles — Clarets, Hocks, Chablis and Sauternes — while Dr Lindeman's Murray vineyards at Corowa supplied the sweet wines of Port, Muscat and Madeira type. It was always the firm's policy to sell matured, high-quality wines, a standard maintained across three generations of the Lindeman family. By 1926/27, Lindeman's had become the second largest wine exporter in Australia by Customs figures, recording over 300,000 gallons for that period alone. Much of this was attributed to a special study made in blending wines for export, and to the propaganda work undertaken in England by governing director Mr Leo Buring, whose activities were widely reported by cable to newspapers across the Commonwealth.
Lindeman’s Sydney presence was equally notable. Beneath the Queen Victoria Building, Lindeman's operated enormous cellars equipped for modern bottling, where their sparkling wines were produced according to methods adopted in the French champagne cellars, with natural effervescence achieved through fermentation in bottle. The cellars were described as a revelation to visitors from around the world.
Lindeman’s was equally prominent at the Sydney Royal Show. In 1928 Lindeman's were named most successful exhibitor in the Wine Section, receiving £5 5s, and claimed Gold Medals across Hock, Chablis and Claret types. They were not alone on the prize list. The Port type Gold Medal went to Smith S. and Son Ltd, while Gehrig's NSW Wines Ltd claimed the Sherry type. Seppelt B. and Sons Ltd took out the sparkling wine trophies for both Australian Champagne and Australian Sparkling Burgundy, with Caldwell's Wines Ltd and Lindeman's placing in both categories. These were names that would become fixtures in the RAS Wine Section in the years that followed, and several had by this time begun advertising in the RAS Annuals, recognising the publication's reach among the Society's influential membership.
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Perpetual trophies play a significant role in the Sydney Royal Wine Show, and one of the most coveted was introduced in 1958. Maurice O'Shea spent 35 years making wine at Mount Pleasant in the Hunter Valley. He had studied at Montpellier, returned to his family's property at Pokolbin, and, at a time when Australian winemaking was dominated by fortified wines, he quietly produced Shiraz and Semillon of elegance and remarkable longevity. Today, O’Shea is remembered as one of the fathers of Australia's modern winemaking.
O'Shea died in May 1956. Two years later, Rhine Castle Wines wrote to the wine show committee proposing a perpetual trophy in his name. The committee resolved to put it to the executive council, and it was approved. The Maurice O'Shea Memorial Perpetual Trophy has been awarded at the Sydney Royal Wine Show ever since to honour Maurice O’Shea.
In 1938, Rudolph Komon was a journalist in Czechoslovakia, working with the underground resistance as German forces closed in. After the war and the communist takeover, he escaped to Switzerland and eventually made it to Australia in 1950, arriving in Sydney speaking limited English, with a palate that would come to be considered one of the finest in the country.
In 1959, Komon bought a wine shop in Woollahra and converted it into the Rudy Komon Art Gallery, which became the centre of Sydney's avant-garde art scene for two decades. He took on artists including Fred Williams, Clifton Pugh and John Olsen, paying them a wage in exchange for the right to sell their work. He also hosted Saturday lunches attended by Prime Ministers, business leaders and winemakers. He was Cellarmaster of the Wine and Food Society of New South Wales from 1956 to 1976, and from 1959 to 1979 he judged wine at shows in Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth and Canberra.
The relationship between Komon and artist Fred Williams was particularly close. Williams had won the Helena Rubinstein Travelling Scholarship in 1963, and by Komon taking him on as a key artist, Williams could paint full-time. Over 20 years, Komon sold many important works by Williams. Today, a Fred Williams canvas regularly sells at auction for over $200,000. A single painting, Masons Falls, sold for over $3 million in 2023. The connection between the two men outlasted both of them: when Ruth Komon died in 2004, a Fred Williams gouache from her estate was bequeathed to the Art Gallery of NSW in memory of her husband.
Komon died in October 1982. The following year his wife wrote to the Sydney Royal Wine Show committee suggesting a memorial perpetual trophy in his name. The committee resolved to approve it in the form of a painting, to be held in the President's room or the Directors' offices. The Rudy Komon Memorial Perpetual Trophy is now one of the show's most significant awards. That it takes the form of a painting, rather than silver or crystal, says something about the man it honours: for Komon, wine and art were never separate things. Both were about the cultivation of excellence, and the company of people who recognised it.
The gold, silver and bronze medal system that governs every Australian wine show today was adopted at the Sydney Royal Wine Show in 1961. It had been in discussion for at least a year, but the push did not start in Sydney.
In June 1960, a letter arrived from K.B. Fry, Chief of the Bureau of Exhibits for the California State Fair, supporting the move away from prize money to medals. The California State Fair wine competition and the Sydney Royal were the two oldest wine competitions in the New World, on opposite sides of the Pacific, corresponding directly about how quality in wine should be communicated. Both had arrived at the same conclusion independently.
By January 1961, the impatience from interstate was audible. Committee notes record that members of the Royal Agricultural Society of South Australia and the Horticultural Society of South Australia were disappointed the RAS NSW had not yet made the change. By May that year, it was confirmed – there would be gold, silver and bronze medals, representing a standard that winemakers could aim for and consumers could understand.
Source: RAS NSW Wine Committee minutes, June 1960 and May 1961
When Len Evans joined the Sydney Royal Wine Show judging panel as an Associate Judge in 1963, Australians were drinking around five bottles of wine a year, and four of them were fortified. Evans was a Welshman who had come to Australia via New Zealand in 1955, worked odd jobs, tried professional golf, built dingo fences and written television scripts before finding his purpose.
Evans became Australia's first regular wine columnist in 1962. He founded the Australian Wine Bureau in 1965, which later became Wine Australia. He opened the venue Bulletin Place near Circular Quay, which, through the 1970s, was the meeting place for everyone who mattered in Australian wine. He founded Rothbury Estate in the Hunter Valley. He wrote the first major encyclopaedia of Australian wine. By any measure, he was the most influential figure in the development of Australian wine in the second half of the 20th century. The Oxford Companion to Wine credited him with doing more to advance the cause of wine in Australia than any other individual.
Len was appointed Chair of Judges at the Sydney Royal in 1978, a role he held for more than two decades. He didn’t just bring expertise to the judging panel – he brought theatre, deep knowledge and passion, and an insistence on standards that remain today.
Dinners during judging week under Evans’s tenure became the stuff of legend: first-growth Bordeaux served blind, great Burgundies against great Australians. Evans would ask a single question of the table each time: What is the theme? His shorthand notes beside faulty wines were memorable: DNPIM. Do not put in mouth. Even his abbreviations had character.
Evans was recognised for his contribution to Australian wine with an OBE in 1982 and an AO in 1999. His legacy at the show is honoured through the Len Evans Memorial Perpetual Trophy for Best Single Vineyard Wine, awarded each year.
The Evans family connection to the show did not end there. His daughter Sally built her own career in wine independently, starting as a wine buyer in London before returning to Australia to become Marketing Manager at McWilliam’s Wine Group, and was the first woman on their executive team. She joined the RAS Council in 2010 and went on to serve as a judge, committee member and Chair of the Sydney Royal Wine Committee for six years. She was named a Legend of the Vine in 2024 by Wine Communicators of Australia.
When Pam Dunsford took her place as Associate Judge at the RAS wine show in 1984, it was a significant moment in the show's history. Pam Dunsford grew up in an era where young women did not hold winemaking positions, and in 1972 became the first female to be accepted to Roseworthy College to study Oenology. From there, she went on to become the first woman to occupy an important winemaking position in a large company, the first female winemaker to become a wine show judge, and the first woman to be employed by Krug. Her appointment as Associate Judge at the RAS - a role she held again in 1985 - placed that same trailblazing spirit firmly in the Sydney Wine Show ring.
That 1985 panel was doubly historic. Joining Dunsford was Miss Jane MacQuitty, Wine Correspondent for The Times of London - the first woman from overseas ever nominated to the RAS judging panel. According to a 1985 RAS News Release, MacQuitty was at the time the youngest person ever to have won both the Glenfiddich Wine Writer and Whisky Writer of the Year awards in a single year. She has since built one of the longest careers in British wine writing, later awarded an MBE for services to wine journalism.
That two women of such distinction appeared on the same RAS judging panel in 1985 marked a quiet but significant turning point in the show's history. Iconic names such as Karen Maclister-Hohnen, Vanya Cullen, Wendy Stucky, Kerri Thomson (among others) also began as Associate Judges. They continued their involvement, making their way to Panel Chairs and full judges and bringing with them a new cohort of talented women who were equally eager to make their mark.
The introduction of the medal system in 1961 was the most significant structural change in the show's history, but the work of refinement has never really stopped. At the heart of that ongoing evolution has been the Wine Committee, and the passionate professionals who have chaired it. There’s been an ongoing commitment to excellence, keeping up with stylistic changes in wine along with drinking trends.
Graham Thorp, who led the committee from 1984 to 1990, was followed by David Clarke AO, vigneron, co-founder of Macquarie Bank, and a man who understood wine from the ground up as owner of the Hunter Valley's Poole's Rock and Cockfighters' Ghost vineyards. Their stewardship helped establish the foundations on which later chairs would build.
The timing of the show itself moved more than once as the committee sought to serve the industry better. In 1924, the committee noted the difficulty of securing judges during the February harvest period. By 1939, the show had shifted to October. Eventually it found its permanent home in July, a time when the previous vintage is in the bottle and there is still time to act on what the judging reveals.
Lyndey Milan OAM brought a new chapter. The first female Chair of the Sydney Royal Wine Show and Vice-President of the RAS, Milan oversaw the move to tablet-based judging for greater consistency and richer feedback to exhibitors, introduced two new classes for innovation, established the Capital City Wine Shows Committee to share best practice across the country, and began regular meetings with NSW regional shows to strengthen the broader network. It was a period that left the show meaningfully more connected, more rigorous, and more useful to the industry it serves. She was also named a Wine Communicators of Australia Legend of the Vine in 2019.
Sally Evans, who chaired the committee for six years after Milan, continued that trajectory. The current Chair, Angus Barnes also brings deep industry experience, making his own mark.
The Chair of Judges, the most senior role in the competition, has passed through some of the most respected names in Australian wine. They include Len Evans AO OBE, who held the role for over two decades, Brian Croser AO, James Halliday AM, and Iain Riggs AM, followed by Samantha Connew of Stargazer Wines, the first woman to hold the position, from 2015 to 2017, and Sarah Crowe of Yarra Yering from 2022 to 2024. The current Chair, Mike de Iuliis of De Iuliis Wines in the Hunter Valley, was appointed in 2025. Behind each of them, and just as essential to the show's integrity, are the countless winemakers, sommeliers, educators and retailers who give a week of their time each year as judges and stewards, advocates for quality who make the whole endeavour possible, and who carry what they learn back into the wider industry.
Through all of it, the show has tracked the arc of Australian drinking, from the fortified wines that dominated the early decades, to the table wine revolution of the 1960s and 70s, to the moment Australian Chardonnay and Shiraz found their place on the international stage. The evolution continues today. Rosé has moved from novelty to staple. Alternative varieties, Fiano, Vermentino, Nero d'Avola and others with roots in the Mediterranean, are earning their place in the results. And for the first time, alcohol-free wines are being assessed alongside their traditional counterparts, reflecting a shift in how Australians think about what wine is for.
The Sydney Royal Wine Show receives entries from hundreds of producers around the country across 58 classes covering white, rosé, red, sparkling, fortified and alcohol-free wines. Only Australian wines are eligible. A total of 30 judges assess up to 2400 exhibits each year.
Matthew Jukes, one of the UK's leading wine writers, will hold the international judge role in the 200th anniversary show in 2026. Results are announced in August.
Medal-winning producers pour their wines at Grape, Grain & Graze Festival in September for an audience of more than 1000 consumers and trade. Consumers get to taste the best of the best from all wines entered in that year’s show and discover new wines in the process, while producers get direct access to the wine-loving crowd.
The 200th anniversary show will be judged in late July 2026 at Sydney Showground, with entries opening on 22 April. To mark the occasion, the RAS is hosting a wine industry symposium on 31 July, the day following the judging, where the industry can reflect on what two centuries of wine shows have contributed to Australian wine, and what the next chapter looks like.
Two hundred years of Australian wine assessed blind, one glass at a time.
Entries open 22 April 2026
Producer entries: rasnsw.com.au/wine
Industry symposium: 31 July 2026, Sydney Showground